


Circles

by nyaheato



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Chimera Ant Arc, Everything Hurts, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:33:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27678815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyaheato/pseuds/nyaheato
Summary: Whatever’s inside him is cold and weightless, floating, void. Killua wants to press in closer, shove all of Gon’s scattered pieces back together, inside him, hold him together. He wants to push, to break, to grasp and crush. Time snaps back into place like a rubber band before he can do anything, though, and Gon is out of range, standing over Pitou.
Relationships: Gon Freecs & Killua Zoldyck, Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	Circles

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for this jaslkfhdjkshfjkd

“You know, Kite saved me, awhile back. I might not be here right now if not for him.” Gon smiles ruefully, shifting to look sideways out the window. The late afternoon sunlight falls golden on his cheeks. 

“And then he hit me, ‘cause I did something pretty dumb that got me into danger in the first place.” Gon turns to face Killua again.

“That’s why I have to save him! Now I have to repay the favor twice over, or—or he saved me for nothing.” Still smiling.

“Gon…”

“You get it, right?” Gon looks away, gaze distant. “When he hit me, it hurt, but it felt like he really cared about me. That’s what I felt when he punched me.”

Haze settles heavy in Killua’s chest. “Yeah, I get it.”

\-------------------

“You’re perfectly calm, since it has nothing to do with you.” 

The words press in on his skin, cold and dark and viscous. Gon’s aura rushes and pulses around his body where he stands with his back to Killua, the feet miles between them. Pitou crouches defenseless in front of them, huddled on the floor.

Killua runs, and doesn’t think of Kite.

\-------------------

When he finally arrives, Killua isn’t sure what exactly he’d expected. His own certain death? Yes. Gon, beaten and broken yet refusing to give up, Pitou standing over him with bloodied claws? Maybe. Probably. But this?

Pitou’s limp body slams into the tree with a bloody crack. The creature is at their side in an instant, broad shoulders hunched, long hair flowing like wet ink.

“Gon,” Killua whispers. “Is that you?”

He turns in response, tears streaming down his face, heavy, empty.

The one in front of him is Gon, Killua knows. He’d seen this coming. The body is stretched and misshapen, everything thin and distant. The Gon he’d known had been dense, bright, tiny. Supermassive.

Pitou is dead, but their body lunges anyway, and it’s all Killua can do to reduce Gon’s losses to his right arm. One second explodes and stretches into many, and the space between them, Killua’s hands pressed against Gon’s chest, exists dark and empty and cold in the remaining vacuum.

He thinks of someone else with long hair, and someone small, gone now. He’s at close range, but there are no blows to absorb, nothing to break through, to reverse, nothing from which to save Gon. He wishes there were. He wishes there were.

Whatever’s inside him is cold and weightless, floating, void. Killua wants to press in closer, shove all of Gon’s scattered pieces back together, inside him, hold him together. He wants to push, to break, to grasp and crush. Time snaps back into place like a rubber band before he can do anything, though, and Gon is out of range, standing over Pitou.

Aura flares to life in lieu of the severed arm, gold expanding and lighting up the planes of Gon's face. _Supernova,_ Killua thinks in abject horror and sadness.

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt.”

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

\-------------------

He chokes out a sob and tries again, shaking hands splayed across the fragile chest, electricity crackling beneath his fingers. The body arches off the ground lifelessly, unresponsive.

The sound that punches out of him is raw and keening. Fisting his hands in the fabric of Gon’s tattered shirt, Killua discharges another shock into his body, stronger this time. He’s keenly aware of his finite and dwindling supply of aura.

This time, Gon’s entire body shudders and he inhales sharply, eyes rolling behind his eyelids. Killua gasps in tandem as the heart beneath his palm stutters back to life. Everything gathered inside his chest breaks apart and drops away, and nothing is okay, but the world isn’t ending anymore.

A shudder wracks his frame as he claws and clutches at his friend’s body, sitting collapsed on the cold ground, pulling Gon against his chest in a crushing grip. Burying his face in his shoulder, Killua wishes he could do anything other than hold him and cry, but the body in his arms is empty and vast, splintered, redshifted pieces scattered far beyond Killua’s reach. It’s too late. For all he’d promised Gon, he’d been too late.

Gon twitches in his arms, groaning, and Killua’s breath catches. Pulling back, but not too far, he rests a hand at the base of Gon’s skull to support his head, fingers pushing through the long, thick mess of hair. Cold and soft, unfamiliar.

His eyes slide open, lidded and cloudy at first, but Killua watches as the mist clears to lucidity, heart dropping. 

“Killua,” he whispers, the sound stumbling broken from his lips, “I’m sorry.”

_For what? For dying? For living? For leaving me behind?_

Killua searches the eyes, and they’re clear, and it’s Gon, but they are quiet and dark, emptied, gold replaced by a lusterless umber. Everything is gone. He stays silent, and Gon’s eyes fall closed as he slips into unconsciousness again.

_For what?_

Sighing, Killua hefts the prone form onto his back, shouldering its burden. He’s walking back toward the castle and the rest of the team, but he can’t shake the feeling that he’s just going in circles.

_You can rest now. I’ll take it from here._

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so uhm. idk if the parallels between gon and kite and killua and gon in caa are intentional or not buuuut i thought it would be interesting to sort of explore so. I drew them anyway :) 
> 
> thanks for reading! kudos and comments especially are very much appreciated!!! <33


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